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I couldn’t help but feel really excited about Assassin’s Creed III release the moment I realized that it wasn’t that far off anymore.

Naturally, I had preordered the game, and I picked it up during its midnight release. I immediately started playing it as soon as I got home.

The next day, someone asked me what I thought about the title. Strangely, I didn’t have an answer yet. Even tough I had spent a considerable time with Ubisoft's latest assassin-themed adventure, I was still playing through its tutorial.

I know how important tutorials are, but we also know the importance of having a strong introduction to this type of game. Basically, I feel like Assassin’s Creed III isn’t trying to appeal to new audiences. I endured the painfully long tutorial because I, a long-time fan of the series, knew the "good things" were coming.

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Curiosity -- What's Inside the Cube has a better morality system than any other game this year, and you didn't even notice.

Like any title with a system based on moral choice, this game rewards and punishes you based on what side you pick. Good characters can't complete the evil quests. Bad characters may be attacked on sight by the local constabulary. Sometimes, evil characters can get more "stuff" by selfishly hoarding and stealing, while good characters can get more help from non-player characters because they’re more likable.

Due to balancing requirements, games with moral choices like that have to support all the possible moralities. When done well (like in Knights of the Old Republic), players receive very different experiences based on their choices that fit naturally to their chosen morality. When done poorly (the ending of Mass Effect 3), players receive the same experience with a different coat of paint .

So how does this apply to Curiosity?

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Niko Bellic had it all.

The expensive suits, a variety of apartments, a selection of carefully parked vehicles. OK, so he had to deal with the murder of his girlfriend, and he’d failed many, many times in getting revenge for it.

Besides all that, life was good.

And, within the blink of an eye, it was gone.

“Disc unreadable." Despite repeated attempts, my Xbox 360 refused to play the open-world crime fest known as Grand Theft Auto IV any longer. I needed to buy a replacement disc for Niko's life to continue. For various reasons, I ended up buying the game for my PlayStation 3 instead. I started Niko's journey once more from the beginning. Along the way, I got to experience some great moments again and also got to compare my newer journey to my first playthrough in 2008.

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LA Game Space wants to upgrade and democratize the creative video game community. The non-profit company is aiming to create a facility in downtown Los Angeles where people of different disciplines can come together to research, collaborate, and make new forms of interactive entertainment. The founders also envision it to be a place for workshops, lectures, and more.

They’re currently trying to collect enough coins from backers (via Kickstarter) to unlock this promising center. Some of the prizes for donating include 30 exclusive, independently developed games (including a collaboration from the creator of the animated series Adventure Time), founders credit, T-shirts, and even a cameo in the next Bit.Trip Runner title.  

I had a chance to talk with directors/co-founders Daniel Rehn and Adam Robezzoli, along with advisory board member Jeremy Douglass, about their objectives with LA/GS. Check out my interview to see why this just might be one of the most important new headquarters for the future of game theory, culture, and development.

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The Community Spotlight features some of the best unedited articles that didn't quite make the front page. This week, we ask if the upcoming Devil May Cry is crippled, call Microsoft out on a racial faux pas, search for a permanent multiplayer partner, and more. Join us!

Is Devil May Cry running on a game leg?
By William Franklin

The stylish action of the Devil May Cry series relies on fluid, high-quality graphics for its thrills. So what happens when you cap the framerate at 30 frames per second instead of 60? William explores the reasons and ramifications behind this technical decision.

Microsoft Hispanic culture flub
By Louie Castro

The Xbox Live video dashboard features a section devoted to Hispanic TV and video...but to promote it, they chose an image of the very not-Hispanic Tommy Chong. (Stoner buddy Cheech Marin would have been an appropriate choice.) "This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I never purchased an Xbox," Louie says. 

Video games: Children's heroes and role models
By Brielle Wesley

Video games have made a lot of strides over the years, but as far as protagonists go, it's still a boys club. Brielle says developers need to think more about how their characters will influence young people and gender roles.

The pursuit for Player Two
By Cassandra Brabon

Cassandra takes a look at a recent Kotaku article about how gaming affects personal lives, especially in romantic contexts. "As with any relationship, it all comes down to respect," she says. How open are you about your gaming with potential partners?

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[The following contains spoilers for Grand Theft Auto IV and its two DLC packs]

Back in 2008, acclaimed author Junot Diaz (Drown, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) wrote a piece about Grand Theft Auto IV entitled “’Grand,’ but No ‘Godfather.’" In it, he described GTA IV as:

 ... an example of our evasions as a culture, more of a fairy tale, more of a story of consolation than a shattering cultural critique or even, dare I say it, great art. GTA IV is a game that allows you to forget how screwed-up and complicated things are in the real world; it could have done more, it could have put that screwed-up complicated world front and center.

I’m not sure that I completely disagree with Diaz, but I am curious to know how (or if) his opinion would have changed if he had ventured to play the game’s two DLC add-ons, The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony.

I recently completed a second playthrough of the full game and the two add-ons, and I have to admit that my first time through GTA IV left a bittersweet taste in my mouth. The narrative concept of this particular entry was grand, but the game was just too damn long and its narrative sagged in places (Manny Escuela, anyone?). However, playing the DLC and the main quest at the same time made the narrative a much more cohesive and interesting experience. What emerged was a shared and rather grim story about chance.

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Ha! Animals are dumb. No wonder we eat them or keep most of them as pets. You want proof? Just watch Assassin's Creed III confuse the heck out of this stupid cat. An in-game animal walks off-screen, and the silly feline looks behind the TV to see where it goes. What a dumb animal. It clearly has no understanding of digital projection.

You can watch the adorable video for yourself after the break. Be sure to laugh and point at the cat when you do. That's the only way it'll ever learn.

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This year has been pretty amazing in terms of cinematic experiences for geeks and gamers. The Avengers was an epic melee of classic one-liners and superhero action, The Dark Knight Rises was a sound round-out to one of my favorite trilogies to date, and Wreck-It-Ralph plucked at my retro-loving heartstrings in clever, meaningful ways that resonated beautifully with its vibrant animation.

And yet, the most definitive experience this year for me came from an independent, two-person team delivering a deep and raw documentary that has been critically acclaimed by The New York Times and is the winner of the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

The documentary, Indie Game: The Movie, is an exceptional exploration of the struggles small-scale indie developers face, but more than that, it analyses creativity at its very core and examines what people will go through in order to realize their dreams. Indie Game: The Movie is a passion project about passion projects. And the struggle of creating indie games demonstrates that this is the toughest creative medium to commercialize out there.

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Man, where did 2012 go? Must've been all that time I spent playing video games. Anyway, it's time for another round of Bitmob's Big 10, where we feature the most popular stories of the previous month, as written by you, the Bitmob community.

This month's list has a great mix of first-timers and old site veterans, covering topics as diverse as sex, drugs, and Final Fantasy. (OK, maybe those aren't that diverse. Anyway.) Congrats to everyone!

Here are the most-read community articles for October 2012:

10. Far Cry 3 might lead to a new era of first-person shooters by Chandler Tate

9. Video game music just isn't the same any more by Bryan Harper

8. The Legend of Zelda needs to evolve by Brandon Guerrie

7. My completely objective Resident Evil 6 review based on other reviews by Mark Purcell

6. Experimenting with video games as drugs by Nathaniel Dziomba

5. The one Final Fantasy game you should play by Nate Ewert-Krocker

4. A run-and-gun retrospective of three modern-day gaming classics by Jonathan Oyama

3. Stop the witch hunt: Exploits are not cheating by Carlos Alexandre

2. How I sold my soul for sex in the Mass Effect series by Michael Westgarth

1. 5 games you should play for Halloween by Jesse Meixsell

Do you want to be on next month's list? Here are some tips:

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Developer Electronic Arts' patch for the latest installment in its annual FIFA soccer game series came out for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 earlier today (it dropped on PC last week, because PC). Among the fixes is the usual "general stability during gameplay," but the update also eliminates one of the most inconvenient and puzzling glitches this year.

See, FIFA 13 used to have a "rare occurrence" (according to the patch notes) of the ball disappearing while you were playing the game. This wouldn't be such a big issue, except that it's a soccer game, and the ball is pretty much the one thing that needs to remain visible at all times.

So, yeah. It was kind of a big issue.

Regardless, I'm sorry to see EA is squashing this bug, if for no other reason than that it means an end to hilarious videos of people realizing how difficult playing a sports game with an invisible ball can be. I've included a couple of my favorites after the break.

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It's my dream to write for a major gaming publication. I work hard to hone my writing skills and make contacts in the industry. It can be demoralizing at times. But this is my dream, and I want to succeed.

Then, after one Eurogamer article questioning journalistic integrity in the industry, I watched Twitter explode with game journalists defining what "Games Journalism" is. Personally, that opened my eyes a little. Not so much in terms of the ethics (or lack thereof) within the game industry, but in terms of what this industry needs to provide for people like me.

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Standing in the room where the creators of my country drafted a declaration of Independence was surreal. I could feel the history in my bones while I stood in awe. This powerful feeling subdued my cynical outlook on history. Then, as the tour guide spoke, I realized I had already felt this feeling before while playing Assassin's Creed III. 

This was my first visit to Independence Hall. The fact that I would be taking a tour of the building only days after buying and playing ACIII is pure coincidence. I already knew the layout of the building, which, for the most part, is accurate within the game. This experience made me realize that the virtual and the actual do have an emotional connection. 

As part of ACIII’s narrative, protagonist Connor pops into Independence Hall. Connor witnesses George Washington accepting command of the Continental Army, and he sees the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. These events sent a cold chill down my spine. I realized that I was witnessing the creation of my country. Even though it happened in a video game, the event still profoundly affected me. All of a sudden, I had the patriotic urge to join the cause against the British.

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